Forever
by Mariana1
Summary: Sequel and finale to 'I promise' and 'Alone' N/G m/m SLASH!!! so don't read if you don't like. Nick's been taken, but can Greg find him in time?


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AN: First thing's first, I DON'T OWN THEM, tho I really would like to…

Secondly- thank you Willow, for beta-ing again…

Thirdly- SLASH STORY!!!!!!!! So don't flame me if you have a 'problem' with m/m pairings… there is a lot more where this comes from!

Fourth, my lovely reviewers… potatogirl, I'm not sure what's getting silly, but anyway

Maria Christina, Thank you kindly **bows flamboyantly**

Deaths Daughter- and your point being

Melindotty- cute… hmm, yes that word could be ued for Greg, sometimes he looks just like a puppy…

Elina- convincing? Why, thanks

Madia- thank you

Illman- thank you again, and as you will now know there is indeed continuation and of course a happy ending, Greg kept staring at me with those huge big eyes and I couldn't _not_ write a happy ending

?- DIE FOUL SLASH HATER!!!!!!! I did warn you! 

DD&Willow- I think I probably already thank you

Lady Lenna- you make an exception, for me? I am deeply honoured!

Franny2- here is more, sorry it took so long, summer holiday you understand

Melanie- here, good reviewer is the end. 

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Forever

Greg felt the phone slide from his hand and heard a distant thud as it hit the ground. His mind was blank. For once in his life he did no have a glib answer. The only thing he could think; the thing he whispered to himself over and over again was: 'He's got Nick, he's got Nick.'

It became a mantra to him, pounding in his head in time with his quickening heart beat. It sapped his strength and made him sag with weariness and lack of purpose. What was the point? Why should he care about anything if Nick was not coming back?

Then another thought occurred to him, hitting him with such great force that he could not breathe. This was his fault. If he had not been late he wouldn't have got hurt and Nick would not have gone after him. This was all his fault. He had hurt Nick. As if from someone else entirely he felt a tear crawl down his cheek. But his mind was elsewhere, every brain cell was concentrating on where Nick was, the conversation he had just had went over and over in his head, searching for a clue- some tiny noise he could use to find out where he was. There was nothing.

Frustrated he grabbed his mobile and stood up, wincing at the pain in his side, only to pace the tiled floor, causing the passers-by to stare, alarmed, at his face, which expressed both fear and fury. Then, as suddenly as he had got up, he stopped, frozen with realisation.

Nick's words reverberated around his head. 'I… I love you…' he gasped. Nick loved him? Nick loved him. He felt a stupid smile spread over his face. He could not believe this, he could not believe that Nick could possibly love him. A warm feeling dispelled the other emotions inside him for a moment, as he knew his feelings were returned. Then another thought came to him, he could never tell him.

The anger came to the forefront once more and he punched a number into his phone. Within seconds the other end of the line was picked up.

"Gil Grissom, Crime Lab," his boss's familiar voice answered.

"Griss," he said, his voice breaking though he strained to keep it under control. He heard Grissom shift in his seat. "Greg? What's wrong? Did Nick pick you up?" Greg felt a stab of pain as the name was mentioned. He took a moment, to make sure his emotions were more firmly under his control. 

"He's got Nick," he said deliberately leeching from his voice the anger, the hatred, the fear, and the love. 

"Who's got Nick?" Grissom's voice was alert, worried. Greg began to understand that he was not the only one who would suffer if Nick were hurt. Nick had touched everybody's lives and even the idea of his Texan charm no longer present in the lab, their lives, was unthinkable.

"The man who attacked me…" Greg stated slowly, pronouncing each word with a carefully erected indifference.

"SHIT!" The explosive response caught Greg off guard, he had never heard or seen Grissom, the almighty Grissom, display anything other than emotionless detachment.

"I'll be right there…" Grissom said before hanging up, leaving Greg standing there in the hospital waiting room, feeling disconnected to the people around: worried relatives, stressed doctors and pained patients. He stood there, waiting.

*****

"I'm coming in," Greg insisted, holding his ground against Grissom. The air between them was thick with conflict. There was no way Greg was going to let them find Nick without him. His mind rebelled against the idea. Unexpectedly Sara came up to them and lightly touched Grissom's arm.

"Griss, he needs to do this," she said, her voice a low whisper filled with caring for her friends and worry for Nick, "as much as you do." Grissom turned his head to her for a second, eyes meeting and understanding flashing between them. Greg saw this exchange and felt jealousy as he wished Nick were here. When Grissom turned back to him it was as though some of Sara's caring and worry had rubbed of on him. He nodded silently and gestured Brass to go in.

Greg felt fear consume him as he walked into that house. For a moment he stared, unseeing, but a gasp from Sara alerted him to the blood spatter that clung to every available surface and led into one of the rooms.

He felt as though he were going to be sick. All this blood… It was one thing to have it nice and professionally on a swab, but quite another to see it here, in this normal looking hallway, polka dotting every surface and knowing it could belong to Nick.

Noticing Grissom's glance at him Greg gulped back the tears that were frantically trying to escape, beating against his shaky defences. He felt Sara's hand on his arm, squeezing gently, offering unconditional support.

He gestured toward the open doorway, for inside he still hoped, without analysing why, that this blood was not Nick's, that there had been someone else here. With his hope and heart in his eyes, but preparing himself for the worst, he followed Grissom into the room.

*****

The first thing he noticed when he walked through that doorway was the body, lying face down in a pool of his own blood. At that moment a moan escaped his lips and he felt giddy with relief and happiness for a second. It wasn't Nick!

The sensation only lasted a second, though, and then the fear and worry returned. Nick was still missing. He was out there somewhere with that asshole and Greg didn't even know if he was okay.

At that moment Grissom caught sight of the knife, concealed beneath the body. He called Sara over and had her bag it and take it back to the lab to dust for prints. Greg just stood there numbly, wanting to help but not being able to think straight with images of Nick running through his mind.

Nick laughing, Nick talking, Nick kissing. Nick smiling that smile that made him look so damn hot. Nick being serious, Nick flirting, Nick sleeping by his bedside in the hospital. Nick wearing that stupid baseball cap. Nick promising revenge, Nick lying dead in some dark secluded place, a growing pool of blood around him. And along with these images a Texan voice drilled into his soul:

'I…I love you…'

'I'm gonna find who did this to you…'

'I promise they'll pay…'

'I love you…'

"I love you too," Greg whispered, voicing the emotion out loud for the first time to the empty, bloodstained room, wishing Nick were there to hear him.

*****

"Greg?" Sara said quietly, coming up behind him, "We've run the finger prints and got a match, the moron wasn't even wearing gloves." Greg turned to her.

"So what's going on now?" he asked in a dead voice. Sara looked at him sympathetically, he knew she could see the blank coldness in his eyes. He looked away.

"Brass just checked the house, he wasn't there, but his wife was." Greg's head snapped up to her then, confused.

"Wife?"

"Yeah, she didn't know anything about this but he doesn't have an alibi for either time." Triumph crossed her face. Greg looked at her again.

"Why are you telling me this?" his voice steady and unemotional. His control, by now, almost perfect.

"Because he also has a warehouse and I thought you'd like to be there when…"

"I'm coming," he said as soon as the word warehouse issued from her mouth. He wanted to be there and see the look on the bastard's face as they caught him. He wanted to be the first person Nick saw. He wanted to take him in his arms and tell him he loved him too and he wanted to hear Nick say those words and look into his eyes as he did so. But more than anything he wanted to feel Nick's arms around him, enclosing him in warmth and protecting him. He wanted him to kiss him and tell him everything was okay and nothing was going to hurt him ever again.

*****

The door to the warehouse was kicked down. Greg saw it as if in slow motion, every second taking a minute, every breath a lifetime. The sounds were muffled by his heart beat and his erratic breathing and the two voices still echoing in his head.

His mind and the adrenaline pumping through him turned the next few minutes into a blur of noise, people and movement. But his mind was still concentrated on Nick, wherever he was and praying desperately that he was ok.

When the world had stopped spinning and turning in strange, illogical twists and his ears had stopped ringing with remembered conversations, he found himself with his head buried in someone's shoulder with tears pouring down his face. Warms hands rubbed up and down his back and a smooth Texan voice whispering in his ear, telling him everything was going to be ok. More tears came and he clung to Nick, the fear, the worry, and the anger of the last week bleeding out of his eyes.

"I," he gasped between sobs, "I love you…" Nick's hands gripped his shoulders and pulled him back slightly and he found himself looking into Nick's smiling face.

"You do?" he asked, his voice low, soothing Greg's abused ears. However, the words made him feel uncomfortable, aware of every tearstain and bruise on him.

"Yeah," he said, avoiding Nick's eyes. Perhaps Nick hadn't meant it when he said he loved him, perhaps he had just said it because of the circumstances. Perhaps…

All doubts and misunderstandings were swept aside as Nick's lips touched his, heating him from the inside out and assuring him of Nick's feeling. He felt as though he was floating, the only things bringing him into reality being Nick' hands on his back, Nick's lips on his, the feel of his hair and T-shirt beneath his hands and the cold wet ground beneath his knees.

Nick's kiss, caring, gentle, loving, conveyed an unspoken promise: that he would protect Greg, keep all harm from him, forever.


End file.
